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November 18, 2007

In his Mystics as a Force for Change (1981), Dr. Sisirkumar Ghose argues that throughout the evolution of humankind, the mystics have always been among people as evidence of transitional forms within the species. Instead of accusing mystics of being dropouts and escapists, Ghose insists that

"it might be fairer to say that in breaking the illusions of the cave dwellers they have been more responsible to reality and to the race.… They have been the true scientists of catharsis and conversion.… The only radical thinkers, they alone go to the root of the matter, beyond the various shaky schemes of mundane perfection, swaying between the worship of the Fatted Calf and the horror of the Organization Man."

Since many saints, prophets, and mystics have seemingly achieved a state of cosmic consciousness and/or illumination, William James (1842—1910), writing in his classic work Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), lists the features that he believes form a composite picture of "universal saintliness, the same in all religions:"A feeling of being in a wider life than that of this world's selfish little interests; and a conviction, not merely intellectual, but as it were sensible, of the existence of an Ideal Power.…A sense of the friendly continuity of the ideal power with our own life, and willing self-surrender to its control.An immense elation and freedom, as the outlines of the confining selfhood melt down.A shifting of the emotional center toward loving and harmonious affections, towards "yes-yes" and away from "no," where the claims of the self-ego are concerned.

It becomes therefore urgent to understand what this unity is towards which we feel pushed in spite of ourselves. Man is a transitional being, said Sri Aurobindo shortly after the first World War, evolution continues and man will be surpassed. Not only did Sri Aurobindo foresee the next step in the evolution of man, but he told us how to participate in it: instead of remaining a passive spectator in a painful and incomprehensible process, we could consciously collaborate in our own evolution and break free of our seemingly inextricable bonds.

Using inner means

But for this, we have to reverse the process, said Sri Aurobindo, and instead of using external means, we have to turn inward, because without a change in man's nature no real changes in the external circumstances are likely to take place. The only way we can move towards unity is to progressively realise that there is a secret Spirit, a divine Reality in which we are all one - not only realise it mentally but discover it in ourselves and live this knowledge. The secret of unity is within, said Sri Aurobindo; the secret of brotherhood is within. There is no unity except by the soul, there is no real brotherhood except in the soul and by the soul. Only when we live from the soul and not from the ego will a real unity reign on earth... www.auroville.org